


Mark and the Chamber of Secrets

by lazyllama



Category: markiplier - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-03
Updated: 2019-03-03
Packaged: 2019-11-08 17:26:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17985503
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lazyllama/pseuds/lazyllama
Summary: Deep beneath Hogwarts, there is a chamber, and it's full of more secrets than anyone could ever know.





	Mark and the Chamber of Secrets

**Author's Note:**

> Happy Birthday, Tom! Hope you like it :D

“Fischbach! Scheid! Knutsen! What are you doing?”

The three of them froze, slowly turning to face Professor Host marching determinedly towards them. His white and blind eyes no hinderance as he moved through the crowd.

“We – uh – well we uh – you see,” Tyler stammered around.

“Amy!” Kathryn blurted out.

Mark and Tyler turned to stare at her, but she didn’t look at them. The professor raised an eyebrow.

“It’s just,” Kathryn said, sounding shy and uncertain. “We haven’t seen her in forever, and you know we just thought that maybe… maybe we could go see her and tell her that the mandrakes are ready. Just go tell her that it’s going to be okay.”

For a moment, a months’ worth of detention flashed across Mark’s eyes. Then, as the professor stared at them, he spoke in a strangely croaky and broken voice.

“Of course,” he said. “Of course, I understand that this must be hard on those who friends have – yes, I quite I understand, Ms. Knutsen. Please tell Iplier that I have given permission for you to visit the hospital wing.”

The three of them hurried around the corner, barely believing they’d gotten away with it. As they rounded the corner, they heard the distinct sound of a nose being blown.

“That,” Mark said fervently. “Is the best lie you’ve ever told.”

With no other choice now, the three of them went to the hospital wing. Dr. Iplier huffed as they told him that the professor had given them permission.

“There is no point in talking to a petrified person,” he said. “They’re practically dead.” At their alarmed faces he held up his hands, “But not _actually_ dead.”

Mark had to admit, he was right. Amy laid there, staring with frozen horror at something she could no longer see. She didn’t move, didn’t make a sound. As they took their seats around her, it was obvious that they might as well go tell a bedpan that it was going to be okay for all the good it would do. Amy had no idea that they were there.

“I wonder if she saw the attacker,” Tyler said, looking sadly at Kathryn who had taken Amy’s hand. “Because if the Heir of Slytherin snuck up on them, nobody would ever know…”

Tyler’s voice drifted into the background as Mark stared at Amy’s hand. The one Kathryn wasn’t holding was clenched tight. It was holding something. Bending down closer, Mark saw a bit of paper sticking out.

Mark swung his head about, looking for Iplier. Once certain that the strange doctor wasn’t going to see him, he directed Tyler and Kathryn’s attention towards the clenched fist.

“Try to get it out,” Kathryn said, her own eyes locked on Iplier. Tyler moved around the bed slowly, making it seem like he was going to comfort Mark. Instead, he put one had on Mark’s shoulder and blocked him from view. Mark began tugging at Amy’s fingers.

It wasn’t easy. Mark was certain that he was going to tear the paper, Amy’s hand was so tight around it. After a few minutes of wiggling and tugging, the paper came free.

“What does it say?” Kathryn asked.

It was a piece of paper torn from an old library book. Mark smoothed it out and began to eagerly and quietly read it aloud.

 

_Of the many fearsome beasts and monsters that roam our land, there is none more curious or deadly than the Basilisk, known also as the King of Serpents. This snake, which may reach gigantic size and live many hundreds if years, is born from a chicken’s egg, hatched beneath a toad. It’s methods of killing are most wonderous, for aside from its deadly and venomous fangs, the Basilisk has a murderous stare, and all who are fixed with the beam of its eye shall suffer instant death. Spiders flee before the Basilisk, for it is their mortal enemy, and the Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster, which is fatal to it._

Underneath the words, written in Amy’s recognizable scrawl, was a single word: _Pipes._

And with that, a light flicked on in Mark’s brain.

“Guys,” he breathed. “Amy figured it out. This is it! The monster in the chamber is a basilisk! The voice I’ve been hearing everywhere… it’s because it was a giant snake! That’s why I can hear it and nobody else can, because I can speak Parseltongue!”

Mark looked at the beds around him.

“The basilisk kills by looking at you, right? Nobody directly saw it! Jim saw it through his camera. The basilisk burned up all the film inside, but Jim just got petrified. Evan saw the Basilisk through Nearly Headless Nick! Nick got the full effect of the stare, but he can’t exactly die again… and then Amy…”

Mark pointed at the hand that Kathryn had been holding. “She had a mirror, right? She figured it out! She and that other Ravenclaw kid were found petrified in the same place. Amy must have been warning them to look around corners with a mirror and they ran into it!”

Tyler’s jaw dropped. Kathryn frowned.

“What about Marzipan?” She asked.

Mark though for a moment. “The water… there was a puddle of water. The flooded bathroom from Eric… Marzipan must have seen the basilisk in the water. The reflection saved her.”

Kathryn let out an audible sigh of relief.

_“The Basilisk flees only from the crowing of the rooster,”_ Mark pointed out. “All of King’s roosters were killed. The Heir didn’t want any of them near the castle once the Chamber was opened. He must have killed them. _Spiders flee from it…_ it all makes sense!”

“But how is it getting around?” Tyler asked. “It’s a giant snake. Someone would have seen it and reported it.”

Mark held up the piece of paper. “Pipes! Amy figured out that it was using the plumbing to get around the castle. That’s why I could just hear it when we walked in the halls.”

Tyler’s eyes widened. “Wait! If it’s been using the pipes… then what if the entrance to the Chamber is in a bathroom. What if it’s in—”

“Eric,” Kathryn finished. “The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets is in Eric’s bathroom.”

They sat there for a moment, excited and hardly able to believe it. They’d solved it.

“That means I can’t be the only Parselmouth,” Mark said. “The Heir of Slytherin is one too. That’s how he’s been controlling the basilisk.”

“Should we go to Professor Host?” Kathryn asked, eyes flashing as she looked between him and Amy lying frozen.

“What do we do?” Tyler asked.

“Let’s go to the staffroom,” Mark said, jumping to his feet. “He’ll be there soon. It’s almost break.”

Not wanting to risk getting caught again, they ran to the staffroom without stopping. As they waited for the bell, it never came. Instead, echoing through the halls, came Host’s booming and amplified voice.

_“Attention,”_ he said. _“All students return to your House dormitories. All teachers please return to the staffroom. Imminently.”_

Kathryn wheel around to stare at the boys with horror. “Another attack?”

Mark looked around quickly, spying the wardrobe full of teachers robes. “Get in,” he said. “We’ll listen and figure out what’s going on. Then we can tell them.”

The three of them crammed into the small wardrobe, pressed against each other. They closed the door just as the door to the staffroom burst open, teachers striding in. The three students pushed each other, each trying to spy out the small crack. One by one the professors sat about, muttering to each other. Finally, Host walked in causing silence to fall over the teachers.

“What’s going on?”

He cleared his throat. “It’s happened. A student was taken into the Chamber.”

Mutters broke out again before one asked, “How can you be certain?”

“There was writing left, scrawled across the wall. _His skeleton will lie in the Chamber forever.”_

“Who?” Another asked.

“Ethan Nestor.”

Kathryn covered her mouth as she gasped. Tyler went white, and Mark felt his stomach drop.

The professors looked as sick as the three students felt. They loudly talked over each other, arguing and exclaiming their disgust. It all sounded far away to Mark. Like a conversation at the opposite end of a hall.

Ethan… he’d been so excited to come back and join his friends again. Mark knew that this year had been rough, but he should have seen that something was wrong. He should have seen that his friend was getting targeted.

“We shall send all the students home tomorrow,” Host said, voice louder than the others and sending a ripple of silence through the teachers. “Please, Heads of Houses, please go to your students and instruct them to begin packing. This is the end of Hogwarts…”

Slowly, they began trickling out until nobody was left but the hidden students.

There was a moment of silence. Then they fell out, still shocked into quiet horror.

“He knew something,” Kathryn finally said. “He must have. That… that’s the only reason the Heir would have taken him, right? It’s not like… it’s not like the Heir is going to kill him. I know he’s muggleborn but… he wouldn’t k-kill Ethan?”

Mark just wanted to collapse. He had never felt worse. If there was only anything he could do. Anything.

“Mark?” Kathryn asked, voice cracking. “Do you think… do you think he’s…?”

Mark didn’t want to answer. He couldn’t think of anyway that Ethan could still be alive.

“You know what?” Tyler said, standing straight. “We’re going to go save him. I don’t care, Ethan has to be alive. I refuse to believe otherwise. We are going to the Chamber, and we are going to bring Ethan back.”

“How?” Mark asked. “We have an _idea_ of where the entrance is. We don’t have a plan, we don’t know who the Heir is… we have nothing.”

“Fuck that,” Tyler said, causing Kathryn and Mark to widen their eyes in surprise. “I’m not going to just give up. You said roosters kill that snake, right?”

Mark nodded. “Yeah, but they’re all dead. The Heir killed them all.”

“It can’t hurt to double check,” Kathryn said. “Maybe Professor King has one?”

“Fine,” Mark said. “But let’s be quick. Curfew is soon.”

The three of them quickly left the staffroom, darting through the halls until they reached the grounds. The sky was beginning to go dark. The sun touched the horizon, casting orange and gold over the lake. They hurried down to the hut at the edge of the forest.

King sat on his porch, a gathering of squirrels around him as he scattered crumbs to them.

“Ah, Mark! Tyler and Kathryn, what are you doing here?” King asked, looking concerned. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but you need to go pack. Dreadful things happening—”

Before he could say another word, Kathryn stepped forwards, “Do you have a rooster?”

King’s eyes began watering. “My poor roosters were all killed.”

“Do you have another?”

King blinked the tears away, “Well, yes. I just got my shipment of chickens from Hogsmead this morning. I just got them set up in the coop out back.”

“Can we borrow your rooster?” Mark asked. “We’ll bring him back. Maybe.”

King just stared at them in shock for a moment. “What do you need a—”

“We don’t have time to explain,” Tyler said. “Please, Professor. We need the rooster.”

Slowly, King nodded.

“Thank you!” The three of them said at once, scrambling to the back. It took them a few tries, but eventually they caught the loud red and green rooster. Feeding him a few crumbs, Kathryn shut him up as she shoved the bird into her robes.

“Everyone should be in the Great Hall,” Mark said. “We should take the long way around to Eric’s bathroom.”

They got lost once as the hall changed on them, but eventually they made it to the bathroom. Already they could hear the muffled sobs. Stepping inside, Mark’s shoes were instantly soaked by the overflow of toilet water. Curled up on a sink was the shaking form of Eric Derekson, sobbing into his translucent robes.

“Oh, it’s you guys,” Eric said as he caught sight of them. “What do you want? Come to make fun of my glasses again? Or my shirt? Or my…”

“How did you die?” Mark asked.

For the first time, Eric stopped crying. He actually smiled a bit. He looked as if he had never been asked such a flattering question.

“Ooohh, it was horrible,” he said, floating up to sit cross-legged. He clutched his handkerchief tightly. “It happened right here. I died in that stall, right over there. I was hiding in there because my father had sent me anther letter, demanding I work for his business. Saying how he wished my brothers were alive. I was crying, when I heard someone come in. They said something funny. In a different language, I think. But then there was this dreadful scrapping noise. I opened the stall to tell him to go away…” Eric leaned in close, Mark taking a step back. “… and then I _died.”_

“How?” Kathryn asked.

Eric shrugged. “I don’t know. All I saw were these big yellow eyes, and then I was floating… and then I was here. I was determined to haunt my dad but I forgot that you can only haunt the places you died.” Eric gave another loud, shuddering sob. “Not like my dad would ever visit the place I died.”

“Where did you see the eyes?” Mark asked.

“Somewhere here,” Eric gestured at the sink underneath him.

They surrounded the sinks, looking them all over. At first, they looked perfectly normal. Just another set of bathroom sinks. Then, Kathryn pointed out a small snake carved into the side of the middle sink.

“That tap has never worked,” Eric said, floating above them.

“Mark,” Tyler said. “Say something in Parseltongue.”

“But—” Mark scrunched his nose. The only times he’d spoken Parseltongue was in the presence of a snake. It couldn’t hurt to try. He focused on the small engraving.

“Open,” he said. He looked over at Kathryn and Tyler. They shook their heads.

“English,” Kathryn said.

Mark focused back on the snake. He willed himself to believe it was real. In the dancing light, the snake shifted. Willing the snake alive, Mark said once more: “Open.”

Except the words didn’t come out like that. A guttural, hissing noise came from his mouth. All at once, the tap began to glow and spin. Next, the sink shifted and actually sank. A large pipe was exposed, like a slide down into darkness.

Mark’s mind was made up.

“I’m going down there,” he said, turning to his friends.

If there was the faintest chance that Ethan was alive… the faintest chance that they could stop the Heir… Mark was going to take it.

“Me too,” Tyler said.

Kathryn nodded. She reached into her robes, pulling out the rooster. “I should stay up here. Just in case you… in case you don’t come back. Somebody needs to be here to tell a teacher where this is.”

“Okay,” Mark said. He hesitated, then he pulled Kathryn into a hug. Tyler joined a moment later. For a second, they stood there, clutching each other tightly. None of them wanting to acknowledge that this might be the last time they saw each other.

Then they broke apart.

“Awww,” Eric sobbed. “I wish I had friends… or could get a hug…” he floated off to cry in a toilet stall.

Kathryn handed the rooster to Mark. It clucked quietly before he gave it another handful of crumbs and tucked it away.

“See you soon,” Kathryn said, voice holding strong.

“See you soon,” the boys echoed.

They turned to the tube.

“Shortest first?” Tyler suggested.

“Piss off,” Mark said, and jumped into the tube.

It rushed down in a slimy, endless, dark tunnel that smelled like a three-month-old tuna sandwich. There was several branching off pipes, but none as large as the one they slide through, which twisted and turned. Behind him, Mark could hear Tyler grunt as he hit the turns.

Just as Mark started to worry what would happen when they reached the bottom, the tunnel leveled out. Mark shot out the end, sliding to a wet and slimy stop. A moment later Tyler crashed into him, the two falling into a tangled mess. The rooster squawked, but was quickly quieted with a few more crumbs and a pat.

The room they were in was big enough to stand in. The walls were wet, and covered in dense dark green slime. The ground crunched as they stood. Mark wiped his glasses on the clean parts of his robes.

“Lumos,” Mark said as he pulled out his wand. The room illuminated. The ground was covered in bones of rats and other small creatures. Another tunnel extended on opposite them. It was too dark to see far, but it was the only way to go.

“We must be under the lake,” Tyler said, looking at the walls.

“Remember,” Mark said as they began to walk. “Watch out for moment. The moment you see something move, close your eyes. Don’t look at it.”

The tunnel, however, was silent as a grave. The only noises were their footsteps and the occasional crunch if they stepped on a bone. After a few moments, Tyler grabbed Mark’s arm.

“Mark, look!”

Up ahead was a curve of something huge. They two froze, but the thing wasn’t moving. As still as the walls around them.

“Maybe it’s asleep?” Mark whispered.

Tyler jerked his head.

Slowly, their eyes narrowed, they moved towards the giant thing. As they got closer, they realized that it was a skin. A gigantic, shed snake skin. It was poisonous green, but beginning to fade. It curled around the hall, empty and forgotten. The creature that had one resided in it must have been twenty feet long. At least.

Mark walked towards it. Tyler hung back, nervously eyeing it.

“Where do you think it is now?”

“Don’t know,” Tyler said. “Mark, how are we going to kill this thing with a chicken?”

“Maybe…”

Before Mark could finish his thought, a sharp hissing filled his mind.

_“Hungry… consume… obey…”_

The ceiling shook as something moved through the pipes above them. Mark and Tyler froze, but a second later were dodging out of the way as the ceiling broke under the strain. Rocks came crashing down. Mark ran towards the snake, while Tyler stumbled back.

The hissing faded.

As the dust settled, Mark looked back. The way was blocked by giant boulders. The top was clear, but just barely, exposing a hole to a pipe running through it. There was no way through. Just a solid wall of rock.

“Tyler!” He shouted. “Tyler, are you okay?”

“I’m good! Tyler shouted back. “I can’t reach you though.”

A moment of silence as they both realized that they were separated.

“What now?” Tyler asked. “I can get through this but it’ll take ages. And… and we don’t have much time…”

Mark glanced at the ceiling. It was cracked and crumbling. If they tried to blast through the wall, the entire ceiling could collapse. They’d have to move rocks slowly. One by one. It would take forever, and Ethan needed them.

“Wait here,” Mark said. “Try and dig through. I’m going ahead. If I’m not back in an hour… if I’m not back by then, then tell Amy…”

He couldn’t finish that thought.

Tyler didn’t need him to, however. “Tell her yourself,” he shouted back.

Mark smiled.

“Don’t do anything stupid,” Tyler continued. “Just get back here. I’ll have a hole dug out by then. I… I’ll see you soon, Mark.”

“See you soon,” Mark said.

He started off down the hall, past the giant snake skin and into the darken tunnels beyond. It twisted and curved, soon covered the sound of Tyler grunting as he moved rocks. Every nerve in Mark’s body felt alive. He wanted the tunnel to end, yet dreaded what was at its finale. At last, around one final bend, Mark saw a door. Curved around it were two stone snakes, their eyes inlaid with emeralds.

He stood before it. Taking a deep breath, Mark spoke to the snakes. _“Open,”_ he hissed.

They swung open.

_Here goes nothing,_ Mark thought, and stepped through.

The room glowed. That was the first thing Mark noticed as he stepped inside. The next were the pillars. Each lined the room, snakes carved around them. Mark shuddered. Their eyes seemed to follow him. His steps echoed. Each footfall amplified around the large, empty space. Water covered the ground in a thin layer.

Where was the basilisk? Hiding in the darkness behind the pillars? Mark couldn’t see, and was too terrified to investigate further. Instead, he slowly marched forwards, looking for Ethan.

As he reached the last set of pillars, a statue as tall and wide as the Chamber loomed into view. It stood against the wall. A face, ancient and cruel. The nose was hooked, and the eyes sullen and harsh. A long, thin beard fell nearly to the gray stone feet standing on the Chamber floor. At the feet lay a black robbed figure, a hint of yellow peeking out.

“Ethan!” Mark shouted, abandoning any hesitancy as he raced towards his friend. The moment he reached him, he dropped to his knees, wand tossed aside and hands grabbing him. “Please don’t be dead – please please don’t be dead – oh please –”

Mark flipped Ethan over. His face was white as a sheet. He was cold, but didn’t shiver. His eyes though… they were closed. So, he wasn’t petrified. But then…”

“Ethan, wake up,” Mark pleaded. Ethan’s head lolled from side to side and Mark shook him.

“He won’t wake.”

Mark jumped and spun around on his knees.

Leaning against one of the pillars was a dark-haired boy. He shifted, edges distorted with blues and reds. As if he was a chromatic aberration. There was no mistaking him, however.

“Damien?”

Damien didn’t move, his shadowed eyes focused on Mark’s face with a strange intensity.

“What do you mean he won’t wake?” Mark asked. “He’s not… he isn’t…”

“He isn’t dead,” Damien said. “He’s alive… but only just.”

Mark stared at him. Damien had been a student at Hogwarts nearly fifty years ago. Yet here he stood, form shimmering like a mirage. He looked young. Not a day older than sixteen.

“Are you a ghost?” Mark asked.

“Something like that,” Damien said. “I’m part of a whole. A memory, is perhaps an easier way to describe it. This part of me has been preserved in a diary for fifty years.”

Damien pointed at the leather-bound book lying next to Ethan. The same one Mark had found in the toilet. The same one he’d seen Ethan dart away with.

“You have to help me,” Mark said, cradling Ethan’s head in his hands. “I have to get him out of here. There is a basilisk… giant snake… it’s somewhere here, I don’t know where. We have to get out of here. Please, help me.”

Damien didn’t move. Mark struggled to hoist Ethan into his arms before reaching down to grab his wand. But it wasn’t there.

“Did you see—?” Mark began to ask as he turned. Damien was watching him, Mark’s wand held delicately between his fingers.

“Oh, thanks,” Mark said, reaching out for the wand.

Damien didn’t hand it back. Just watched Mark struggle with Ethan’s limp body, twirling the wand carelessly.

“Look,” Mark said urgently. “We have to go. That snake could come back at any second and…”

“It won’t come till called,” Damien said calmly.

Mark slowly lowered Ethan to the floor. “What’d you mean? Damien, just give me my wand back. I might need it.”

Damien’s smile widened. “You won’t be needing it.”

Mark stared at him.

“What the fuck do you mean I won’t be needing…?”

“I’ve been waiting a long time for this,” Damien said. “A long time, Mark Fischbach. For the change to speak to you. To see you.”

“I don’t think you get it,” Mark said, quickly loosing his patience. “We have to get out of here. We’re in the fucking _Chamber of Secrets._ We have to go now. We can talk later.”

“We’re talking now!” Damien shouted, hands no longer twirling the wand. Instead, they were now clenched around it. The red flashed stronger than the blue for a split second, hurting Mark’s eyes.

As quickly as the anger appeared, it was gone. Damien smiled again.

There was something going on here…

“How did Ethan get like this?” Mark asked slowly.

“Now that’s an interesting story,” Damien said, slipping Mark’s wand into his pocket. “And quite long. Ethan Nestor is like this because the idiot decided to open his heart and spill his sad, pathetic soul out to an invisible stranger.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked, crouching protectively next to Ethan’s prone form.

“The diary,” Damien said. “Her…. _my_ diary. Little Ethan with his oh so sad life has been writing in it for months now. Telling me all of his pitiful worries and woes – about how he feels lost and alone. About how he misses his mudblood family. About how he came to school with secondhand clothes and books. About—" Damien’s eyes glinted. “How he believed he could never live up to the great Mark Fischbach. How he would never be important enough to have the important Mark Fischbach notice him.”

As he spoke, his dark eyes never left Mark’s face. He watched him with a near hungry look to them.

“Ethan, you fucking idiot,” Mark muttered.

“It was so _boring,_ having to listen to the problems of a child,” Damien continued. “But I waited. I was patient. I was sympathetic, and I listened. I wrote back. I was kind. Ethan craved that. _It’s nice having a friend who listens, Damien. Damien, I like talking to you about my day. Damien, you like me, don’t you? You don’t think I’m dumb, do you? You’re like a friend in my pocket…”_

Damien laughed, and it hurt Mark’s ears. A high-pitched ringing lasting long after Damien stopped laughing.

“I am everything he needed,” Damien leaned forwards, tilting his head to crack his neck. “If friendship is what he wanted then I could provide. I could give him everything he could have wanted out of a friend. And so little Ethan poured out his soul to me, and his soul was exactly what I wanted. This shard of me grew stronger on his darkest fears and deepest worries. I grew powerful on his secrets. So powerful that I was able to give back. I was able to feed Mr. Nestor a few secrets of my own. Give him a few parts of _my_ soul.”

“What do you mean?” Mark asked, voice shaking. His mouth was dry.

“Haven’t you guessed yet, Mark?” Damien’s voice low and ringing in his ears. “Ethan Nestor opened the Chamber of Secrets. He strangled the roosters and used their blood to paint those messages on the walls. He set the basilisk on those stupid students and that ridiculous cat.”

“No,” Mark whispered.

“Yes,” Damien said back, even and steady. “Of course, he didn’t know what he was doing. Not at first. It was so amusing to play with his mind. And the diary entries… _Damien,”_ he recited, watching Mark’s horrified face with glee. _“Damien, I think I’m losing my memory. I have chicken feathers all over me and I don’t know how they got there. Damien, I can’t remember the Halloween party but Kathryn’s cat was attacked. I feel terrible. Damien, I have blood all over my hands. I don’t know where it came from. Damien, Amy keeps telling me I’m not myself. I think she thinks I’m doing this. Damien, I think I’m going insane.”_

Lips curling into a cruel smile, Damien finished: _“Damien, I think I’m the one attacking everyone!”_

Mark’s fists were clenched, fingernails digging into his palms painfully. He didn’t care.

“It took forever for Ethan to stop trusting me,” Damien rolled his eyes. “Of course, the Hufflepuff with a loyal and kind heart couldn’t believe that his trusted friend would use him. He tried to get ride of it. And then, you stepped in. Mark. Of all the people to find her… my diary, I never thought that it would be _you._ Of all people that could have found the diary, the one person I was most scared and most excited to meet… you found me.”

“Why did you want to meet me?” Mark asked, finding it hard to keep a steady voice as anger rushed through him.

“Ethan told me all about you,” Damien said, eyes roving over him. “All about your fascinating history. How you escaped death as an infant. How nobody found who killed your parents and left you to die, but somehow persisted. I wanted to find you. Talk to you. Gain your trust. So, I showed you that little moment.”

Mark frowned. “Yeah, a fight with your friends. The fight you never showed me the end of. How does a fight make me trust you?”

“You must not have found anything,” Damien hissed. “Although I’m not surprised. I am certain that bastard erased everything that really happened. Replaced it with his own truth.”

“What are you talking about?”

“I am not an entirety,” Damien continued, ignoring Mark. “A piece of me is stuck with this diary. For years I have laid dormant. I knew that one day I could find a host to grow strong from. I could escape, and continue on.”

“Well, it’s too late,” Mark said triumphantly. “You won’t ever finish Salazar Slytherin’s work. Nobody has died. Not even the cat. In a few hours the mandrake drought will be done and everyone…”

“You stupid idiot,” Damien said, the ringing growing in Mark’s ears. “I don’t care about killing anyone. They only stood in my way. My purpose has changed. For months now, my target has been _you.”_

Mark stared at him.

“Image how furious I was when pathetic Ethan was the one writing in her… _my_ diary. Not you. He saw you with the diary and panicked. What if you saw all his dark little secrets? So, the stupid brat stole me back. By then, however, I knew what I was to do. Ethan had told me everything I needed to know about you. How would stop at nothing to find the Heir. How you’d go to any lengths, especially if a friend of yours had been taken. Ethan also told me about how the school was buzzing with the news that you could speak Parseltongue. A rare gift. Do you want to know who… in fifty years… has been able to speak Parseltongue?”

Mark couldn’t move.

“Mark Iplier, and Celine; A talented young witch, and the sister of Damien. Two of the people in the memory I shared with you.”

Mark’s throat was dry. He didn’t know if he could speak if he wanted too.

“Interesting, right?” Damien said. “I made Ethan write his own farewell. Forced him down here to die. Oh, he cried and screamed and begged. Too weak by now to fight back. Too weak after spilling too much of his soul into me. He became boring quickly, but there wasn’t much life left in him. I knew you’d come for him, though. The stubborn little Slytherin. I have so many questions, Mark Fischbach.”

“Like what?” Mark spat, finding a voice in his anger.

“How did you survive?” Damien asked, his smile pleasant and warm. “You, an infant, survived an attack that killed your parents. Left you with not a scratch and nothing more than a few oddities that nobody has seemed to especially notice but those that watch you.”

“Why do you care?” Mark asked back. “They never found who killed my parents…”

“Because it was the Minster.”

Mark froze.

“Wha… what did you say?”

“Minister of Magic, Damien Mayor,” Damien said, his voice lost in memory. “Or, rather, the Minister: Mark Iplier. The fucking prick. A man walking in a body he does not own. He received a prophecy. A prophecy that foretold a downfall. He fears death. He fears an end to his power and his control. So, what did the bastard do? Turn to dark magic, like he always does. Do you want to know who the Minster really is, Mark Fischbach?”

Mark slowly nodded.

Drawing Mark’s wand from his pocket, Damien began to lazily trace glowing lines in the air before him. “Nearly fifty years ago, Mark Iplier met three other brilliant wizards on his way to Hogwarts. Twins: Celine and Damien, and a man whom he would grow to call his best friend. William Barnum. These children were fast friends all through the years. Even when Celine and Mark grew attracted to the dark arts… even when Celine and Mark grew attracted to each other…”

Damien’s eyes were hard.

“But Celine was never one to stay in one place. She and William began their own affair behind Mark’s back. He found out. Of course, he did. This is Hogwarts. Nothing remains secret for long. So, he dove into dark magic. Found a dark entity that encouraged him. Pushed him. Twisted him with hate and revenge. It was in their final year that the fight broke out. Secluded far from any professors’ eyes. Mark killed himself, and let the entity consume the siblings. Their souls were twisted and tore apart. Mark’s soul found itself in the body of his friend, Damien. And the shattered souls of the siblings came into the broken body of Mark. They were so shattered… so broken… that pieces of them latched onto objects. All of those pieces died quickly, but the attachment to the diary of Celine persisted. I persisted.”

Mark couldn’t breathe.

“William was driven insane with what he had seen. Nobody believed him of course. Some even blamed him for the death of his classmates. Mark was apparently dead. Celine was gone. The boy in Damien’s body was shaken and blamed William for the deaths of his closest friends. Damien, the Head Boy. A respected and well-liked student, verses the trouble-maker William. It was no question who was to blame. So, William was thrown in St. Mungos and _Damien_ graduated to become the Minister of Magic.”

The glowing lines came together to form one word: Dark.

“I am not Celine,” he said. “I am not Damien. They are gone. I am not them, and I am not him. I am not you, and I am not me. I am Dark.”

Dark’s eyes focused on Marks.

“And you hold something that needs eliminated.”

For a second, Mark thought Dark knew about the rooster tucked away in his robes, but then he said, “Do you know what a horcrux is, Mark Fischbach?”

Mark shook his head.

“It’s when a wizard shattered his soul. Places the parts into objects so that the wizard might live forever. Mark knew you were in the one from the prophecy. So, what better way to defeat his enemy that turn that enemy into the thing keeping him alive. Forever. He killed your parents to tear apart his soul, and then put that soul inside of you. That’s why you speak Parseltongue. That’s why you get those headaches. It’s because that _bastard_ turned you into the most despicable thing imaginable.”

Dark pointed Mark’s own wand at him. “I know you, Mark. You are so much like him. You are so much like me. You even look something alike. A Slytherin with an affinity for forbidden knowledge. A Parseltongue with anger even you cannot control. A stubborn, spoiled, brat who never knows when to stop. You are a carefully crafted mistake. Just like _him._ ”

“No.”

For a second, Dark faltered. Shocked at Mark’s sudden and unexpected protest. Then he laughed. Threw back his head and laughed before he returned the steady and hateful glare.

“No?”

“I’m nothing like you,” Mark said, finding strength from somewhere. He didn’t know where, because if he was honest with himself, he was scared shitless. Even so, Mark faced down the flickering form of a tragedy from ages ago. “ _You’re_ the mistake. You’re just pieces left over from someone else’s hate. You’re a shadow that is struggling to exist. You’re so set on revenge that you don’t care who you hurt. You say I’m like you? At least I can stand on my own. At least I care about people. At least I have my own body.”

The ringing flared at Dark screamed, “There is nothing _you_ or _he_ can do to stop me!”

“And I’m not him either,” Mark said, somehow finding his own footing against the wildly flickering form of Dark. “Whatever he did to me… whatever he did back then… that doesn’t make me anyone less than who I am.”

Dark calmed for a moment. He watched as Mark stared back defiantly. Then he chuckled, low and menacing.

“Oh, how I am tired of giving people a choice,” Dark said. “I don’t need your words, you stupid boy. All I need is to end what that monster started.”

Dark turned to the statue and opened his mouth. Instead of words, however, hissing came out.

_“Speak to me, Slytherin, greatest of the Hogwarts Four.”_

Mark whirled around to face the statue.

It was moving. The mouth slowly opening up to create a black hole. Something deep inside was coming. Something huge was slithering up from the depths.

Mark snapped his eyes closed, fear rising in his chest. The ground shook as something huge fell to the floor.

_“Kill him.”_

Backing up quickly, feeling his back hit the wall, Mark reached inside of his robes and pulled the rooster out. In terror from whatever it had seen, the rooster screamed. It must have counted as a crow, however, because there was a horrible, gurgling, strangled noise and two short _pops_. The ground shook again as something fell.

Fell, and didn’t get back up.

“NO!” Dark yelled. “ _Get up! Smell the boy! Don’t see, smell!_ Wait… is it… how… you… how did you…how…!?”

A sickly smell filled the air, tanged with the iron scent of blood.

Mark slowly opened his eyes, narrowed at first. Ready to snap them back shut. The rooster squirmed in his arms, thoroughly traumatized. Slowly coming into view was the basilisk. It lay still, collapse only a yard away from him. Its eyes were gone. Destroyed from the crow of the rooster.

It was dead.

“NO!” Dark screamed.

Without thinking, Mark darted forwards. He dropped the rooster and grabbed the diary from the ground. He continued to run towards the snake. As Dark fired off spells behind him, barely missing him, Mark reached the basilisk. With his own desperate yell, Mark brought the diary down on one of the teeth.

Instantly, black ink burst from the diary. It covered his hands and arms, soaking into his robes.

Dark screamed. Looking back, Mark saw him twisting and writhing. His own chromatic aberration eating away at him. Tearing apart whatever was left of two people, taken advantage of and torn into something horrible.

And then Dark was gone.

The only thing left was the steady drip of ink, Mark’s wand lying on the ground, and the nervous clucks of the rooster.

Mark was shaking. From what he had learned, or what he had done, he didn’t know. But his hands could barely grasp the diary and yank it from where it was impaled on the tooth. As he pulled it free, he saw the corroded edges where the poison had burned away any trace of Dark.

A quiet moan broke the silence. Mark turned to see Ethan stir. He raced over, dropping to his knees again and pulling Ethan into a hug.

“Mark?” Ethan coughed. “Wha… what happened? Where…” Ethan’s memories returned. He frantically grasped at Mark. “Mark, I’m so sorry. I’m so sorry, I tried to tell you at breakfast but there was a professor there and I didn’t want to… I didn’t… I’m so sorry I didn’t mean to… Damien made me… I didn’t want too… oh my god, did you kill that thing? Where is Damien?”

“Well,” Mark pointed at the rooster, who had decided to nervously start pecking at the basilisk. “Technically the chicken killed it. But yeah, totally. I killed it. Let’s tell everyone that. And don’t worry,” Mark held up the diary. “Damien is gone.”

Slowly – helping each other – the two stood and began to stumble out, followed by a rooster with PTSD. As they passed the place where Dark had disappeared, Mark scooped up his wand. Soon, they reached the collapsed in section. A sizeable hole had been dug out, Tyler sitting in it with an anxious expression. As soon as Mark and Ethan appeared, he leapt up and rushed them.

They stumbled with the force of his hug, but for a moment they just stayed there, clutching each other.

“What happened?” Tyler asked, pulling away.

“I’ll explain later,” Mark said, knowing that he would never be able to make this make sense. He wasn’t sure even he believed it. “Let’s just get out of here.”

With a few words in Parseltongue, Mark opened up another secret passage way through the pipes. A longer journey, but soon they stepped out in the bathroom, Ethan and Mark still heavily leaning on each other and Tyler holding the nervous chicken. Eric stared at them, covered in slime and – in Mark’s case – black ink.

“You’re alive,” he said.

“Don’t sound so upset,” Tyler huffed.

“Oh,” Eric sniffed. “I just thought… that if you died… I’d have friends… but that’s okay…”

Eric dove into the sink, disappearing with a few loud sobs.

Kathryn rushed them, and yet again they were pulled into a desperate hug.

“You’re okay,” she told them. “You’re okay.”

“I’m sorry,” Ethan said.

“Shut up,” Kathryn said. “Talk latter. Just… just don’t go get kidnapped again, understand?”

Ethan nodded.

“What now?” Tyler asked as they pulled apart.

Mark didn’t speak. His friends just followed him as he limped to the hospital ward. Through the empty halls. Listening to the portraits gasp and point at him until he finally stumbled through the door. His eyes locked on one person and one person alone. Ignoring Dr. Ipliers frantic yells at their states, Mark handed the diary to Kathryn, and went to Amy’s side. He collapsed in the chair next to her, and took her hand.

“Hey Amy,” he croaked out. “I lived, and I, uh, sort of promised myself that if I lived… fuck. Why is this always so hard with you? Uh, what I mean is… Amy, when you wake up, want to go to Hogsmead? Together?”

The edges of Mark’s vision went blurry, and he leaned forward. Resting his head against the hand he held as professors began spilling into the ward.


End file.
